With the official start of the NFL this week we are now back at full speed football season – this week I have a college team, a college fantasy team, an NFL team and a pro fantasy team to cheer on. Four different teams to worry about? That is a lot of stress. Why again have I been pining seven months for the start of football season? Football may be fun, but I am pretty sure I would live a lot longer without it – due to the inordinate amount of stress and the eating of inordinate amount of food that is so unhealthy it is borderline toxic.
However, I need to make the most of these next few football days. I am going to Oktoberfest in Munich next week and staying in Europe for a couple weeks beyond that, so I will be taking a little break from football.
While my Griswoldian vacation may help with my football related stress, I don’t imagine it will help much in the healthy food department.
Anyway, we are back with the full slate of NFL and college games this week. Given, that I have written more this week than Bill Simmons has written since the end of the NBA season, I have one word for my picks this week – brevity.
Before we dive in, Turner and the Shadow have something to say.
Turner: Hello Readers for Week 2 of the THH. Despite the Debacle in Dallas and the Torture in Tallahassee, Super Dave and I survived the first week of college football even though it couldn’t have started worse for either of us. Only Hawkeye Shadow escaped with a ‘win’ (I use that term lightly since it was a D-II, FCS or whatever they call that other league now where you have a compass direction before your mid-western state’s name). How can being 1.9 quarters into a college football season suddenly make your shoulders slump, oh it is b/c it popped out of joint with the rest of Cherokee Nation. While OU / BYU made us suffer through 4 quarters of mistake-prone football, FSU and Miami treated us to what hopes to be the return of great SE college football. Even though the result wasn’t what Super Dave or I wanted, it was a well played game with excitement. OH – and as Super Dave told me, when Miami wins in a given year, that mean OU beats UT. So despite both our pain, hopefully a mediocre OU team can destroy the ************** (insert any word you like) Longhorn’s dreams.
Shadow: Well, let’s see. My college team is the only one that managed a win in Week 1, but the Hawkeyes still fell out of the Top 25. I would say the first game is an okay game to lost if you are going to run the table, but with OU players dropping like flies, and the tough schedule Florida State has…I just don’t see it happening. Not that Iowa is going to finish with fewer losses than OU or FSU, though. Could be a long and disappointing year. On top of that, my hatred is not powerful, as only one of my week 1 prediction’s came to pass.
Have you heard of this new fangled thing called Facebook? My wife uses it on average 2 hours a day. I bored of it after about the same amount of usage time. It was fun to reconnect with old friends, but do I really need to know what people are up at any time, or be subjected to finding out the color of my Aura, which Friends character I am, or have my cell phone charger $2.95 so I can prove I can beat the IQ test score of Britney Spears? I think not. For the THH, whichever school or team has more Facebook fans will incur the wrath of my Hatred…not that it means much,***
***Eye Candy Loophole: when going to the respective Facebook pages to find out their number of fans, if one of the 6 fans they show is super hot, I am allowed to not hate them, even if the pure numbers say I should.
College:
Syracuse @ Penn State
SD: Syracuse quarterback Greg Paulus spent the last four years playing point guard at Duke. Penn State coach Joe Paterno spent the last four years guarding against going dookie in his pants and having people point at him. Advantage: Cuse.
Turner: Ok – a lot of indifference here for Turner. He pretty much took geography out of it since they are so close, and my hatred of Big East vs. Big 11 is pretty much equal, so I’m going to have to go with the random fact of hate.
Fact of the game: did you know that they are no longer called the “Orangemen”? Now they are just the “Orange”. Really – you name your team after a fruit because “It was done in part as a way to save money, and build brand awareness. Before the change, women’s teams were called the Orangewomen and the various athletic teams had their own logos”. Seriously, this might be the sign that our economy had taken such a bad turn that it is not recoverable. Why you name your team after a fruit (and that doesn’t count the Banana slugs), you deserve to be disliked (not hated b/c I like a good Orange – love the vitamin C) more than someone that plays in a place called Happy Valley. That is just very peaceful. So for this one, I’ll rally behind Jo Pa and against the wanna-be QB and squeeze the juice.
Shadow: Syracuse FB Fans: 374 fans, Penn State FB fans: 92,013 fans (ECLH: close, there was a picture of two hot girls…if they had been kissing maybe I would have enacted the loophole). I gladly hate Penn State. Go Orange.
East Carolina @ West Virginia
SD: I have said it before and I will say it again: in a choice between a state that doesn’t actually exist and West Virginia. I choose the state that doesn’t exist.
Turner: First off, you never go against a Pirate, they will kick your booty. Second, you don’t go against teams wearing purple, that is why Furman went away from being the Furman University Christian Knights and moved towards the Purple Paladins – or maybe it was the acronym of the former). And lastly, after a few years ago, I still remember the Fiesta Bowl. Bitter, still very bitter. Might be the only time in my THH history that I want East to beat West.
Shadow: East Carolina FB Fans: 1,700 fans. West Virginia FB Fans: 5,684 fans (ECLH: not sure what this says of WVU, but there weren’t any women at all of the 6 fans shown). Look for the Pirates to beat the Mountaineers.
NFL:
Miami @ Atlanta
SD: When Atlanta hosted the 2000 Super Bowl, an ice storm hit the city, Ray Lewis may have killed a guy with a trident and Kurt Warner was the MVP. I spent that weekend in Miami drinking heavily on South Beach, making bad Ace Ventura jokes and eating tacos at 3 in the morning. I won then and I hope the Dolphins win now.
Turner: Again – major indifference here. I don’t like Hurricanes, don’t really like beaches, can’t stand humidity and dislike riding MARTA. This one comes down to who I’d rather sit down and watch on TV and that would be the Falcons. I like the black and red uniforms, I think Matt Ryan is a stud, their running back has the GREATEST last name, and the dumped Vick. Without any great reason, I’m going to go against the 85 degrees and thousands of beautiful women for a good three hours of watching a rising team play football. I really think I need a life….
Shadow: Miami FB Fans: 304 fans. Atlanta FB Fans: 2,073 fans. (ECLH: apparently on FB, “Hotlanta” it is not). Ronnie Brown will Wildcat the Dolphins to the win.
NY Jets @ Houston
SD: Texans offensive coordinator is Kyle Shanahan, son of former Bronco head coach Mike. Jets offensive coordinator is Brian Schottenheimer, son of former Browns and Chargers head coach Marty. Too bad Jack Elway isn’t playing quarterback for Houston. Regardless – go Texans.
Turner: NY J-E-T-S, JETS, JETS, JETS vs. Houston Texans: I despise Joe Namath, I don’t like Green and White, and I HATE anything that starts with New York (except cheesecake and pizza). The only thing that makes this close is the word “Texans” which makes me cringe as well but at least it doesn’t remind me of rats, trash and dead bodies washing up on shore.
Shadow: Jets FB Fans: 3,832 fans. (ECLH: We have our first and only enactment of the loophole. Kerri Barcia was one of the 6 fans shown. Granted it was kind of a staged “glamour” shot, but she won me over). Houston FB Fans: 1,074 fans. Sorry Texans, you need more talent in your FB fanbase. J-E-T-S, JETS! JETS! JETS!
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Hey, that’s me. J-E-T-S!!!!!! I’m unhappy to say the least about their performance with Miami this year… But hey…. An improvement!